"So where's your faith in me now?" he asked quietly.
Without his smile to light him up, Jones looked tired. He looked as if he'd slept about as well as she had last night—which was not well at all.
"The faith I have in you is still as strong," Melody said just as softly. "I believe—absolutely—that you think you're doing the right thing. But I also believe that getting married would be a total disaster." She sat up, her conviction making her voice louder. "You'd never be happy married to someone like me. Jones, I work with the local Brownie troop, going around picking up trash on the side of the road for excitement. And when I'm feeling really adventurous, I volunteer down at the Audubon Bird Refuge. Believe me, I'm really boring."
"I'm not looking to recruit you to join the Alpha Squad," he argued. "I have six teammates—I don't need to be married to a SEAL."
"And I don't need to be married to a SEAL, either," she countered. She leaned forward. "Don't you see, Jones? I don't want to be married to someone like you. I want to find a boring, regular, average, normal man."
"I'm as average and normal as the next guy—"
She cut him off. "Oh, please!"
"I am."
"Yeah, I can just picture you in the yard with an edge trimmer or cleaning out the gutters. Or helping me shop for baby furniture—oh, that's right up your alley! You can 'take the point' when we go to the mall," she said, using some of the military terminology he'd taught her during their brief tune together.
Jones shook his head, trying to hide his smile. "Come on, Mel. You said yourself you don't know me well enough to—"
"I know enough to be convinced that you're the polar opposite of average."
"How can you be so sure?" He threw her own words back at her. "We were either having sex or unconscious."
Jones stood up, and she knew she was in trouble. She held up one hand before he could move any closer. "Please don't touch me."
He sat down next to her anyway, invading her personal space, invading her senses. God, he smelled so good. "Please don't tell me not to touch you," he countered in that slight Western drawl that melted her insides and weakened her resolve.
He lightly trailed his fingers through her hair, not quite touching her. "We can make this work," he whispered. His eyes were a very persuasive shade of green, but there was something in his face that told her he was trying to persuade himself as well. "I know we can. Come on, Mel, say you'll marry me, and let's go upstairs and make love."
"No." Melody pushed herself up and off the chair, desperate to get away from the hypnotizing warmth in his eyes. God, he made her dizzy. She pulled open the screen door and reached for the knob....
Locked.
The door was locked.
She tried it again, praying it was only temporarily stuck. But it didn't budge. Somehow it had swung shut behind her and now was tightly locked.
She and Brittany kept a spare key hidden beneath a loose board under the front welcome mat, but when she lifted it up, there was no key to be found. Of course not. She'd used that key the last time she'd locked herself out. And it was sitting where she'd left it—on the foyer sideboard. She could see it through the window, gleaming mockingly at her from among the piles of junk mail.
She could feel Jones watching as she fought the waves of nausea that hit her one after another.
She was locked out.
None of the downstairs windows was open—Brittany had just finished reading a heart-stoppingly scary serial-killer suspense novel and had been making a point to lock the windows at night. Even the mudroom windows were tightly shut. The only open window in the house was the one in the baby's nursery—the tower room, way up on the third floor.
She was going to have to ask for Jones's help.
She turned toward him, taking a deep, steadying breath. "Will you help me, please? I need a ride to the hospital."
He was up out of the chair and next to her in a fraction of a second. "Are you all right?"
Melody felt a twinge of regret. For the span of a heartbeat, she allowed herself to wish that the concern darkening his eyes was the result of love rather than responsibility. But she wasn't into playing make-believe, so she quickly pushed those errant thoughts aside and forced a smile.
"I'm locked out. I need to go get Brittany's key. I think she's probably still at work." Please God, let her be there...
"As long as we're going downtown, why don't we stop and have some lunch?"
"Because I don't want to have lunch with you, thank you very much."
He inched a little closer, reaching out to play with the edge of her sleeve. Touching, but not touching. "So, okay, we'll skip lunch, drive into Boston and catch the next flight to Vegas instead. We can get married before sundown at the Wayne Newton Wedding Chapel or someplace equally thrilling. No, don't answer right away, honey. I know the thought overwhelms you and leaves you all choked up with emotion."
Melody laughed despite herself. "God, you're never going to give up, are you?"
"No, ma'am."
The tips of his fingers brushed her arm, and she pulled away, straightening her back. "I can be as stubborn as you can."
"No, you can't. You dull, boring types are never as stubborn as us wild adventurers."
Another wave of dizziness hit, and she reached behind her, suddenly needing to sit.
Jones held her elbow, helping her down into one of the chairs. "Is this normal?"
She pulled her hand free from his grasp. "It's normal for me."
"As long as we're going to the hospital, maybe we should get you checked out. You know, make sure everything's okay...?"
She sat back in the chair, closing her eyes. "Everything's okay."
"You're looking a little green."
She felt him sit down next to her, felt the warmth of his leg against her thigh, felt his hand press against the clamminess of her forehead. But she didn't have the strength to move. "I feel a little green. But that's normal—for me, or so my doctor tells me. Every now and then, I throw up. It's part of my particular pregnancy package. I just sip some ginger ale and nibble on a cracker and then—if I'm lucky—I feel a little better."
"And the ginger ale and crackers are...?"
"Conveniently stored in the kitchen," she finished for him. "Inside the locked house."
"Hang on—I'll get 'em."
She felt him stand up and she opened her eyes to see him step off the porch.
"Jones..."
He flashed her a smile. "There's no such thing as locked," he told her and disappeared from sight.
Cowboy unfastened the screen and pushed the window up even higher. He slipped into the house and looked around as he slid the screen back into place.
This room had recently been painted. The walls were white and the window frames were bright primary colours. There was a band of dancing animals stencilled across the walls in those same brilliant hues.
He was standing in a nursery.
Some kind of baby dresser thing was against the wall and a gleaming white crib was set up in one corner of the room. Several silly-looking teddy bears were already waiting in the crib, their mouths set in expressions of blissful happiness.
Cowboy picked one of them up. It was as soft and furry as it looked, and he held it as he took in the rest of the room.
A rocking chair sat near the open window. It, too, had been painted white, with several of the same dancing animals carefully stencilled on the back. A package of what looked to be brightly patterned curtains and several curtain rods had been set on the dresser—a project yet to be completed.
It was obvious that Melody had already spent a great deal of time getting this room ready for her baby.
Their baby.
What had she been thinking about as she painted those yellow, red and blue animals on the walls? Had she thought of him at all? Had she wondered where he was, what he was doing?
He gazed into the teddy bear's plastic eyes, unable to keep from smiling back at its loopy grin. B
ut then his smile faded. If Melody had her way, his son was going to know this bear's face better than Cowboy's. This bear was going to be the kid's constant companion while Cowboy would be a stranger.
He felt a rush of anger and frustration that quickly turned to despair. He couldn't blame Melody for her mistrust. Everything she'd said was based in truth.
They didn't know each other very well at all. And marriage did need more than sex and physical attraction to make it work. Growing up in a household filled with arguments, anger and tension could well be worse than growing up in a household without a father.
And it wasn't as if he was any kind of major prize. Sure, he'd made the maverick jump from enlisted seaman to officer, but it wasn't as if he had any great aspirations to follow in his own father's footsteps and become an admiral.
He had a little money saved, but not a lot. In fact, it was barely enough to pay for that ring he'd bought at the local jeweller's. He'd spent most of his disposable income on his car and that sweet little powerboat that was docked down in Virginia Beach right this minute. He liked things that went fast and he'd spent his money accordingly.
He hadn't even considered saving up. The need for financial security hadn't crossed his mind. He'd had no intention of settling down and starting a family for a good, long time.
But now here he was. Standing in his soon-to-be-born son's nursery, his insides tied in a knot because there was no way out, no easy solution.
There was only the obvious solution—the grit-your-teeth and shoulder-your-responsibility solution that involved marriage vows and a shockingly abrupt change in life-style.
But hell, he'd made this baby; now he was going to have to live with it. Literally.
Cowboy gently set the bear back in the crib.
Right now, he had to go downstairs and fetch Melody some ginger ale and crackers from the kitchen. And then, despite his own doubts, he had to go out on that porch and convince her to do right by this baby and marry him.
Except every time he sat down next to her, every time he gazed into her heaven-blue eyes, every time he as much as thought about her, he wanted to skip the negotiations. He wanted nothing more than to swing her up into his arms and carry her into the house. He wanted to take her into her bedroom and show her exactly how well they could get along. He wanted to bury himself inside her, to lose himself in the sweetness he'd only known in his dreams for the past seven months.
Despite the fact that her near-perfect body was swollen with child, he wanted her so much he could barely breathe. He'd never even glanced twice at a pregnant woman before—in fact, he'd considered the lack of an hourglass figure to be something of a major turnoff. But now he found himself fascinated by the changes in Melody's body. And he couldn't deny the extremely primitive rush of masculine pride he felt every time he saw her.
He had done that. He had possessed her and made her his own.
In everything but name.
Of course, that insane sense of pride was accompanied by a healthy dollop of toe-curling fear. How on earth was he going to be a good father when he didn't have a clue as to how a good father acted? And how the hell was that enormous, destined-to-be-six-feet-three-inches, Harlan Jones-sized baby going to be delivered from petite little Melody Evans without putting her at risk and endangering her life?
And how was he going to react on his next counterterrorist mission with Alpha Squad, knowing he had a wife and son waiting for him—depending on him—at home?
He went down a few steps and pushed the nursery door open, then found himself in what had to be Melody's bedroom.
It smelled like the perfume he'd caught a whiff of both yesterday and today. It smelled like Melody—sweet and fresh. The room was a little messy, with clothes flung over the back of a chair, and the bed less than perfectly made.
Her sheets had a floral print that matched the bedspread. Throw pillows spilled over onto the hardwood floor. Her bedside table was cluttered with all kinds of things—books, a tape player, CDs, bottles of lotion and nail polish.
It was a nice room, pretty and comfortable and welcoming—a lot like Melody herself.
Cowboy caught sight of his reflection in the full-length mirror attached to the closet door. The starkness of his dress uniform accentuated his height and the width of his shoulders, and surrounded by the tiny rose-coloured flowers and the lacy curtains, he looked undeniably out of place.
He tried to picture himself dressed down in civilian clothes, in jeans and a T-shirt, with his hair loosened from its rather austere-looking ponytail, but even then, he didn't seem to fit into the pretty picture this room made. He was too big. Too muscular. Too male.
Cowboy squared his shoulders. That was just too damn bad. Melody was going to have to get used to him. Or redecorate. Because neither of them had any choice. He was here to stay.
He went down the stairs and found the kitchen.
The entire house was decorated in a pleasant mixture of both antiques and more modern furnishings. It was neat, but not obsessively so.
He searched the cabinets for some crackers and found a box that boasted unsalted tops. He grabbed the package and a can of ginger ale from a refrigerator that was nearly filled with fresh vegetables and went down the hall to the front door. He opened it, making sure it was unlocked before he stepped out onto the porch.
Melody was sitting, bent practically in half, her head between her knees. The position was awkward—her belly made it difficult to execute.
"Sometimes this helps if I feel as if I'm going to faint," she told him without even looking up.
Cowboy crouched next to her. "Do you feel like you're gonna faint?"
"I think it was the thought of you climbing all the way up to that third-floor window," she admitted. "I figured that's how you got into the house." She turned to look at him through a veil of golden hair, her eyes wide and her lips questioningly pursed. "Am I right?"
"It was no big deal." Cowboy wanted to kiss her, but he opened the can of soda instead.
She sat up, pulling her hair back from her face. "Except if you slipped and fell. Then it would be a very big deal."
He had to laugh, handing her the can. "There's no way I would slip. It just wasn't that tough a climb."
Her eyebrow went up into a delicate, quizzical arch as she took a sip of the ginger ale. "No? What exactly is a tough climb?"
Cowboy found himself looking at the freckles that were sprinkled liberally across her cheeks and nose. Her skin looked so soft and smooth, and he could smell the sweet freshness of her clean hair. Great big God, he wanted to kiss her. But she'd asked him a question.
"Let's see...." He cleared his throat. "Tough is going up the side of an oil rig in freezing weather, coming out of a forty-five degree ocean, carrying more than a hundred pounds of wet gear on my back. Compared to that, this was nothing. Piece a cake." He looked down at his uniform. "I didn't even get dirty."
She took another sip of her soda, gazing at him pensively. "Well, you've certainly proved my point."
Cowboy didn't follow. "Your point...?"
"Climbing three stories up the outside of a house isn't a 'piece a cake.' It's dangerous. And it's on the absolute opposite end of the spectrum from average and normal."
He laughed. "Oh, come on. Are you saying I should have just let you lie here and feel sick even though I knew it wouldn't take me more than three minutes tops to get inside the house and get you the ginger ale and crackers?"
Melody pressed the cold can against the side of her face. "Yes. No. I don't know!"
"So what? So I can do some things that other guys can't do," he countered.
She stood up. "That's like Superman saying 'So what—I can leap tall buildings in a single bound.'"
She was preparing to go inside. He should have locked the door behind him when he came outside. "Melody, please. You've got to give me a chance—"
"A chance?" Her laughter was tinged with hysteria. "Asking someone to fly to Vegas to marry you isn't exactly
what I'd call a chance!"
He straightened up. "I can't believe you don't even want to try."
"What's to try? Your leave is up tomorrow morning. God only knows where you'll be going and for how long! If I marry you tonight, I could be a..." She stopped herself, closing her eyes and shaking her head. "No," she said, "forget it. Forget I said that. That doesn't matter, because I'm not going to marry you." She opened the screen door. ''Not now, not ever. It's as simple as that, Jones. And there's nothing you can do to make me change my mind, short of mutating into a nearsighted accountant or a balding computer programmer."
Cowboy stopped himself from taking a step toward her, afraid to push her farther into the house. "I'll make arrangements to get more leave."
"No," she said, and she actually had tears in her eyes. "Don't. I'm sorry, Jones, but please don't. The next time I need rescuing, I'll call you, all right? But until then, do us both a favour and stay away."
"Mel, wait—"
She closed the door firmly in his face and he resisted the urge to swear and kick it down.
Now what?
Short of going inside after her, Cowboy was stuck waiting for her to come back out. And something told him that she wasn't likely to do that again today.
He needed more time. Lots more time.
And he knew exactly the man who could help him.
Chapter 7
"Somebody spend the damn hundred bucks to get me more memory for this thing? It's like trying to surf the net on one of those kiddie kickboards. I swear to my sweet Lord above, if this takes much longer, I'm not going to be responsible for my actions!" Wes was giving the computer screen his best psychotic-killer glare when Cowboy tapped him on the shoulder.
"Have you seen the senior chief?"
Wes didn't even look up. "Yo, Bobby—is H. here?" he shouted across the busy Quonset hut before muttering to the computer, "Don't you hang on me. Don't you dare."
"Nope," Bobby shouted back.
"Nope." Wes finally glanced up. "Oh, hey, Cowman! You're back. Feeling better?" His smile turned knowing. "Finally get some?"
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